Aaron Rodgers

*** 3:30 p.m. update: No more posts today — I have some other work-related matters to pursue — and the Hotline will be dark tomorrow (Friday) because I’m on furlough. I’ll be back over the weekend or, at the latest, Monday morning with an item on whether expansion was worthwhile financially to the conference. (I know what Larry Scott said on the topic. But I’ve asked independent industry analysts to run the numbers.)

*** 10:55 a.m. update: Oregon fans: This is a list of rising seniors only, with the exception of Luck/Burfict/James. Read the criteria in the introduction … But thanks for proving my point about your righteous indignation.

*** Note: This was initially scheduled to be posted on the Hotline earlier this week, but I depayed because of the big news on the TV front. I’ll have more on the media deal in the next 24 hours.

Welcome to the Hotline’s annual NFL Draft look-ahead, a ranking of the top Pac-12 prospects for next April and exercise in semi-futility.

(Here are last year’s projections, if you’re interested — bad miss on Cal’s Cameron Jordan but otherwise not embarrassing. USC’s Tyron Smith wasn’t included because I didn’t expect him to enter the draft.)

The conference looks to be light on elite offensive and defensive linemen but should be loaded at safety in 2011, with four early-to-mid round prospects.

The league is also well stocked at quarterback, but one of the best (USC’s Matt Barkley) isn’t included — this is a ranking of the top rising seniors, with three exceptions:

Stanford QB Andrew Luck, who is on track to earn his degree next spring and will almost assuredly enter the draft as the top overall pick … and Arizona State LB Vontaze Burfict and Oregon TB LaMichael James, because I can’t see either player staying in school one nanosecond past the end of the season.

Action: West Coast Conference closes in on new TV deal with ESPN (to start in 2011-12). Reaction I: We’re probably a month or two from the deal being finalized, and there’s little chance that the dollar figure will ever become public. But the guess here is that the WCC lands one of the best TV contracts, and maybe the best, of any basketball-only conference.Reaction II: And by that I mean the best in both the dollar figure and the exposure. The conference is already doing very well on the exposure front — 13 of St. Mary’s 14 league games are on TV this season, for instance — and it should get even better now that it’s adding BYU.Reaction III: One of the two mysteries surrounding the revised WCC is how the round-robin schedule will work with nine teams. I’m not sure we’ll get the answer until the spring/summer, but my guess is the Thursday-Saturday schedule will remain in place — although fans should expect to see some league games on Mondays.Reaction IV: The other WCC hoops mystery is the format for the basketball tournaments. Will there be a “play-in game” … will only eight teams participate … will the double-bye configuration remain? Those answers may come sooner rather than later.

Congratulations to longtime Hotline favorite Aaron Rodgers, who has always been insightful with his answers and incredibly generous with his time whether he was playing for Cal, chatting courtside at Santa Clara basketball games or on the phone from the Packers’ practice facility.

Action: Arizona beats Cal in 3OT epic, or so they say.Reaction I: As Eammon Brennan wrote on espn.com’s national college basketball blog: “Arizona beat Cal in a triple-overtime classic … that most of the nation (and most of California, if the complaints on Twitter are any indication) didn’t get to see.”Reaction II: Cats grab control of the league race with their Bay Area sweep (one game lead on UCLA, two game lead on UW), which makes them the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.Reaction III: You have to admire the work Sean Miller has done with MoMo Jones. Only a former point guard could have gotten this much out of Jones, who had much to learn and refine when the season began, in just 1+ seasons.Reaction IV: I couldn’t help but think that, up one with 1:13 seconds left in the third overtime, Brandon Smith from 16 feet is not the shot Cal wants. Reaction V: Tough timing for the Bears: A draining loss, with three starters playing 50+ minutes, and Wednesday they leave town for the most arduous trip in the conference. Somehow, someway, they’ve got to come home from Seattle/Pullman with a split.Reaction VI: But goodness, Allen Crabbe is a stud. Assuming Derrick Williams and Klay Thompson leave school, Crabbe is the Hotline’s official favorite for the league’s 2012 POY award.

I made several references to Cal’s 2004 fate during Stanford’s late-season climb up the BCS ladder, mostly in the context of whether the Cardinal would get screwed … err, squeezed … out of the BCS the way the Bears did.

(Turns out, everything broke right for the Cardinal, just as everything broke wrong for the Bears six years ago.)

But with Cal ’04 on my mind a fair amount, I started pondering the kind of hypothetical questions that can make for entertaining conversation/debate on the Hotline:

Which team’s better?

They’re clearly the best the Bay Area has produced in the past 10-15 years. I’m not familiar enough with Cal ’91 or Stanford ’92 to have a good sense for how those teams would compare and won’t get into that discussion here.

(If Hotline readers want to hammer that out on the comment boards, feel free.)

Based on response (on the blog and via email) from outraged Baylor fans, I probably should address why the No. 10 Bears aren’t on my ballot — and haven’t been for several weeks.

They are 6-0 and, in my estimation, one of the 15 or 20 most talented teams in the country. But the ballot isn’t a projection of how the Bears might finish in the Big 12, or how deep they’ll go in March Madness.

It’s a reflection of what teams have done to date.

As I written many times (in regards to my football and basketball polls), I emphasize quality wins and even quality losses. I favor teams that lose close games to top competition over teams that do nothing but beat creampuffs.

*** Here’s an early version of a column I wrote for Tuesday’s Mercury News about the quarterback situations at Cal and Stanford as they break spring ball and start preparing for training camp …

What a difference a Bay makes.

On a chilly night early last week, Stanford Coach Jim Harbaugh could barely contain his excitement over the performance of freshman quarterback Andrew Luck, who tossed five touchdowns in the Cardinal’s Spring Game.

Five days later, on a warm Saturday afternoon, Cal Coach Jeff Tedford gave a matter-of-fact review of quarterbacks Kevin Riley, Brock Mansion or Beau Sweeney following the last of Bears’ spring workouts.

Quick, slightly-random, definitely-bleary-eyed, insta-thoughts covering college and the NFL, focused mostly on local talent and with a decided slant towards Berkeley.

Action: Ex-Cal, current Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson celebrates one yard too early and has apparent touchdown nullified against Dallas.Reaction: Veteran Jackson watchers probably were not surprised to see the showboating move. He was arguably the most selfish player to come through the Bay Area this decade.